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Yoga isn’t known as a competitive field, but that’s not the case with the companies that sell the apparel its practitioners wear.

When Lululemon Athletica opened its second Columbus store recently at Polaris Fashion Place, fans of the sportswear company may have applauded, but another retailer in the sector might have found the move an in-your-face moment.

That would be Victoria’s Secret Sport, which has been operating its own store at Polaris for about a year and sits right next door to Lululemon’s store at Easton Town Center.

“It’s like seeing a Stauf’s next to a Starbucks,” said Matt Wilson of SBC Advertising. But while such tit-for-tat maneuvering is becoming more commonplace, the real news is how competitive the yoga-wear sector has become.

“Lululemon is a supercompetitive company and will not cede ground to other retailers,” Wilson said. “Where Victoria’s Secret Sport punches, Lululemon will respond.”

The yoga-wear sector, once little more than a segment of athletic clothes, has boomed since Lululemon opened its first store in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1998. The retailer has succeeded with a combination of pricey athletic merchandise and in-store yoga classes.

Both sides of the equation seem to drive the other, Lululemon CEO Christine M. Day told analysts recently.

“We are just continuing to be so pleased at the response to that just basic core yoga business, and it also includes, obviously, the gym fitness studio,” Day said. “And we still see, particularly in the (United) States, it is a very technical athletic guest that is purchasing the product.”

The formula has been so successful that last year the company reported $1 billion in revenue.

“Lululemon kind of owns the category,” said retail analyst Deb Miller of Boulevard Strategies, a consulting firm in Columbus. “It’s got a pretty strong following. They do a lot of things that are more about brand experience than about the clothing they sell. They really try to create connections through their classes and instructors.”

Such success has been noted, of course, by other retailers in addition to Columbus-based Limited Brands’ Victoria Secret. Nike, Gap, Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren, J.Crew and Under Armour are among those who have started selling yoga collections in recent years.

A recent report by market research company NPD Group said that the women’s active-wear market is growing twice as fast as women’s apparel, increasing 6.7 percent from 2010 compared with the overall women’s apparel gain of 3.1 percent.

Limited Brands executives had been well aware of that opportunity for years and quietly began testing Victoria’s Secret Sport back in 2007. But the recession pushed that effort to the back burner.

“We’ve always been very excited about the (Victoria’s Secret Sport) business,” Victoria’s Secret CEO and President Sharon Turney told analysts soon after the relaunch of the brand last year. “But as we came through 2008, we really wanted to focus on our core business, which was the bras and panty business.”

The relaunch was confirmation of “the opportunities that we have in terms of our sport business,” Turney said. “I do believe that we can be a very strong player.”

For Victoria’s Secret and other rivals in the sector, an important part of the strategy is to offer merchandise at much lower prices than Lululemon. Yoga pants typically sell for about $100 at Lululemon, for example, while Victoria’s Secret Sport sells them for about $60.

While that might seem to put Lululemon at a competitive disadvantage, such is not the case.

For one thing, Lululemon’s merchandise is “totally worth it and lasts forever,” Black said.

For another, “from a brand point of view, I think there will be room for two because these two brands are vividly different,” Wilson said.

Lululemon is “much more ‘technical.’ I know. I work out every day. I live in Lululemon. If you go to Lululemon’s website, you’ll see a girl who’s really buff.”

The Victoria’s Secret Sport Facebook page, on the other hand, promotes the “sexiest workout ever” with photos of the lingerie chain’s “Angels” modeling the athletic wear.

Fit trumps style for some people.

Retail analyst Miller’s daughter, Jamie, a 22-year-old Ohio State senior, said she likes Lululemon “because, for me, it fits better. I’m a runner and Lululemon’s shorts, pants and sports bras feel right when I’m running.”

Even so, fashion does play a factor with Lululemon merchandise and explains why some women happily wear the yoga pants outside of the gym — and why Victoria’s Secret finds such opportunity in the sector. The fabric Lululemon uses “is like a pushup bra for your butt,” Black said.

“The colors and patterns change a lot,” Jamie Miller said. “They do have more stuff come out than the others. I was just in there, and they had a lot of things in popular colors. They had pants and shirts in a really pretty burgundy color.”

The combination of fashion and function is part of Lululemon’s secret sauce, Day said.

“What we believe we do better than anyone in the world is create such beautiful athletic products that it can be used for multipurpose,” Day said. “And it’s always that transformability, whether we’re doing it in cycling or we’re doing it commuting or anything else. What we’re always exploring is the way that you make function with beautiful detailing become fashion.”

So popular is the design of the Lululemon pants that the company recently went to court over them, charging Calvin Klein with infringing on its design patents.

“They’re all trying to knock off Lululemon,” Black said.

The money at stake is big. NPD Group’s study indicated that, while consumers have been trying to avoid spending too much in the aftermath of the recession, women’s athletic clothing remains a healthy category. U.S. sales of women’s athletic clothing last year stood at $30.5 billion.

While Lululemon is big, Limited Brands should never be underestimated, analysts said.

“Victoria’s Secret and Limited Brands are a marketing machine — they’ve got it down,” Black said. “When they’re going to do something, they’re going to do it. They’re going to be very successful.”